


If Tomorrow Never Comes

by thatguynguyen



Category: Narcos
Genre: Anal Sex, Dancing, I have not written fic in many years, Just silly happy endings, M/M, Not dramatic, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn With Very Little Plot, References to Country Music, The show is sad enough, apologies in advance, or angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29255454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatguynguyen/pseuds/thatguynguyen
Summary: “Oh, it's just a little something I like to call the music of my people,” Steve says. He’s wanted to do this ever since he watched Javi dancing at the bar the other night, and so far, so good. He’d had time to do just about everything except chug copious amounts of alcohol to calm his singing nerves.He takes Javi’s beers and stashes the case in the fridge—there’s not much competition for the space, anyway. Javi is still staring at the stereo like it’s cursed. “Your people are my people too, you know,” he mutters. “In theory.”
Relationships: Steve Murphy/Javier Peña
Comments: 15
Kudos: 60





	If Tomorrow Never Comes

Like so many great and terrible happenings on this side of the 20th century, the whole mess starts with a phone call. Well, technically it starts in a bar, but it’s the phone call that really gets things going.

The bar is one of those little hole-in-the-wall places that Steve has come to learn Javi loves, where there’s more liquor than lighting. The bar itself is so dark Steve can barely see his drinks as he downs them, going solely off the faint reflections that shine around the glass rims. Camped out on stools next to one another, he and Trujillo don’t speak, looking around them like every shadow holds a new threat, because it might. It’s tough to relax these days when the stakes are so high, after everything and everyone they’ve lost along the way.

But there is one person who doesn’t seem to have any problem relaxing. _Javi_. He’s out on the dancefloor, spinning around with a breathlessly giggling 20-something. Although he’s got absolutely no business doing so, Javi is laughing, too, and speaking rapid-fire Spanish that Steve can’t possibly grasp from where he’s seated. Somehow, despite everything else going on in the world—hell, in this city—Javi is having himself a damn good time. It’s tough not to envy him for it, or for the cute girl in the too-tight top, Steve thinks as he downs yet another shot.

But at the same time as Steve is grousing to himself _That bastard_ , he feels a distinct pang in his chest. Like remembering something he’s forgotten about, or reading a piece of only mildly bad news for the first time.

Steve watches Javi and his girl of the evening for a moment longer before he shoves back his stool and stands. “Have to piss,” Steve grumbles in answer to the unasked question on Trujillo’s face. Trujillo nods and returns to nursing a beer, but Steve can feel the eyes on his back all the way to the door.

Outside brings blessed quiet, but the midnight Medellín air is just as humid and warm as inside the bar, wafting over Steve as he heads for a pay phone lit up in the darkness of the street. He ambles over, taking it slow so he doesn’t stumble over anything. What with Escobar and the Cali boys to worry about, he’s got more than enough threats hanging over his head—no need to add his own drunk ass to that list.

He has to steady his hand to feed coins into the phone one by one, enjoying the faint clink they make on the way down. Connie picks up on the second ring.

“Hey, baby,” Steve says, hoping he isn’t slurring yet.

“Steve?” Connie sounds half-awake, and Steve checks the time on his wrist—three in the morning. Whoops.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Steve mumbles. For a second, just one, he’s overcome by a wash of feeling too strong to name. This is pathetic, he thinks. Probably woke up the whole damn house; the baby, too. Then Steve chokes it back and says, “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

There’s sounds of rustling, and Steve imagines her shifting in bed, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“So, you’re calling me at—3AM, just because you felt like it?”

Steve winces. Connie’s voice is playful, but that does nothing to allay the guilt and, alright, the frank self-pity resting heavy on his shoulders. “Would you believe me if I said yes?” he asks.

“Mm. Not really,” Connie says. More shifting, then a pause, in which he can only hear her breathing in and out. “I miss you, too.”

“Miss you, too,” Steve parrots back automatically, feeling his face warm in a way that has nothing to do with the sweltering phone booth. _Shit. Get it together, Murphy._

“Where are you?”

“At a—a bar, with Javi and Trujillo. We’re being safe,” Steve says before she can chide him for going out drinking at a time like this. “We’ve got each other’s backs.”

“Glad to hear it.” More breathing. “Doesn’t sound like you’re in a bar right now. Are you missing out on all the fun?”

Steve laughs, but it’s a harsh and short sound. “No, no. Javi’s in there living it up with some local, and I just… it made me think about you.”

He can viscerally feel how pitiful the words are, but Connie only hums, the sound crackling over the connection. Then she says the words that make Steve just about stop breathing where he stands. “What about your local?”

For a moment, between the alcohol, the late night, the ever-shitty international connection, Steve wonders if he’s misheard. “What?”

“What, you don’t have one?” Connie asks. Her voice has gone back to teasing again, and it makes Steve’s head spin—well, faster than it’s already going, anyway.

“Well, I do have a beautiful wife,” Steve says.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Whom I love.”

“But she’s currently on another continent.”

Steve leans his forehead against the grimy phone booth wall to steady himself. Surely he’s mishearing this. Or maybe Connie’s just sleep-talking. Maybe these are just late-night words that’ll evaporate in the daylight like so much cigarette smoke. “Connie, what are you talking about?” he asks. “Is this some kind of… roleplay?” He could definitely get into phone sex if that’s what this is, but her tone doesn’t sound right. Plus, there’s the whole glass-walled-phone-booth thing.

Connie sighs, but it’s more exasperated than annoyed. “Hon, we’ve got no idea how much longer you’re going to be down there,” she says. “When I said I want you to come back home in one piece, I meant that. And if you need some—help—to keep your head screwed on right, then do what you have to.”

Steve takes a moment to consider, acutely aware of how much international minutes cost and how few coins he’d slid into the phone slot. Then he asks, “Is my wife seriously telling me to go get laid?”

He’s rewarded by a quiet laugh. “Consider it a get-out-of-jail-free card,” she says, then she seems to get serious. “But there are some ground rules. If you take me up on this, I want to know. And you’d better be safe—don’t go getting anybody pregnant.” She sighs again. “God, I sound like my mother.”

Steve laughs, too, cradling the receiver against one flushed cheek. Then he sobers, steeling himself. “Connie, are you sure about this?”

“I am,” she says, and she sounds like it. Despite everything, her voice sounds firm and exacting, like she’s made up her mind and she isn’t sorry about it. “Now, get back in there and let me go back to sleep.”

Steve snorts. “Now the truth comes out,” he jokes.

“Have fun,” Connie says. Then, unimaginably gentle, she adds, “Goodnight, baby. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Steve says.

Trujillo gives him nothing but a raised eyebrow when he gets back to the bar, and Steve just waves off the expression on his face. They go back to drinking in silence, watching Javi. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Steve ever left; he’s pressed to the girl’s back, hips tight on hers as they sway to the music—something quiet and warm, a man’s voice crooning low over soft guitar chords.

Steve sips at the new beer that’s appeared in place of his empty shot glasses, turning Connie’s words over and over in his mind as he watches Javi and his dance partner step slow around the floor. _Don’t go getting anybody pregnant_ , he thinks. Huh.

*

It takes Steve three more phone calls to ascertain that Connie isn’t messing around—on the last one, she gets pissed and lectures him about not taking her seriously—and then it takes him another two weeks to actually wrap his head around it. Finally, three weeks after that night at the bar, Steve has his plan. Yes, an honest-to-God _plan_ —he didn’t join the DEA because he liked running off half-cocked, after all.

After yet another long day at work (when aren’t they now?) Steve slides into his desk chair across from Javi, who’s tapping away at his typewriter and ignoring the rest of the world, per fuckin’ usual. Also per usual, he has a lit cigarette burning in the corner of his mouth.

Steve watches Javi for a moment, the way his tongue pokes out to adjust the cigarette from time to time, the way his dark eyebrows furrow and set as he focuses on whatever it is he’s writing up. Probably a report about the useless hotline tip of the day, which sent Javi and Steve on a wild goose chase that ended with them tangled in some abuela’s laundry on a steaming tin rooftop.

“Something you’d like to say, Murphy?” Javi asks, looking up, and Steve realizes that he hasn’t been quite as subtle with the longing stares as he’d hoped. His dark eyes capture Steve’s and hold them.

Steve shrugs, trying belatedly to play it cool. “I was going to ask if you want to come over for a nightcap once you’re done with—” He gestures to the growing sheaf of papers next to Javi’s elbow.

Javi quirks an eyebrow. “A nightcap? What the hell do we have to celebrate?”

“My sobriety,” Steve says.

He can almost see the gears going in Javi’s head as he tries to work out what Steve’s playing at. “Since when?”

“The past 24 hours,” Steve says, with a twist of his lips that may or may not be a smile. Then he puffs out a breath and adds, “But hey, you’ve got better things to do.”

He stands and turns to swing his windbreaker over his shoulders—wildly unnecessary in the Colombian heat, but at least it hides the gun tucked in the back of his waistband. He’s not sure if he’s relieved or terrified when he hears Javi sigh loudly behind him and say, “I’ll catch up.”

That gives Steve just enough time to nod, wander out of the command building like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and speed through the city streets to his dark apartment. Once there, he first sets about gathering the alcohol, ice, and glasses, then puts an old country record on the stereo with the needle up, so it’s ready to nudge down when Javi finally walks through the door holding a case of beer, looking more than a little bewildered at the sounds of twangy chords and even twangier voices that spill out to meet him.

Javi pinpoints the source immediately, with one accusatory finger in the direction of the stereo. “What,” he says, “is that?”

“Oh, just a little something I like to call the music of my people,” Steve says. He’s wanted to do this ever since he watched Javi dancing at the bar the other night, and so far, so good. He’d had time to do just about everything except chug copious amounts of alcohol to calm his singing nerves.

He takes Javi’s beers and stashes the case in the fridge—there’s not much competition for the space, anyway. Javi is still staring at the stereo like it’s cursed. “Your people are my people too, you know,” he mutters. “In theory.”

He helps himself to a glass and the bucket of ice cubes on the table. Steve follows suit, pouring himself a whiskey on the rocks and watching Javi do the same, hoping his gaze comes off as playful or thoughtful rather than the hunted stare of a man who’s about to leap off a ten-story building.

Javi takes his usual seat on the sofa and Steve sits in the chair opposite him. Then they drink for a minute or two without either of them saying a single word. There have been countless nights like these, moments when they both are too tired to get out even a sentence or two, so they don’t try, because what is there to say? They understand, they understand each other and they know that sometimes words are too inadequate for whatever particular shitstorm happens to be going on around them at any given moment. It’s more comfortable this way— _usually_.

Tonight, however, is not _usual_. Steve only manages to sit still for a minute, maybe two, before he’s up and moving, pacing around the room the way he did when he thought he was going to lose his job after that meltdown at the airport. Javi watches him with the vague, silent interest of a housecat.

The chorus of Randy Travis’ “Forever and Ever” echoes through the apartment. “I love this song,” says Steve, a little slow, since it’s been playing for at least a minute or two now.

Javi’s still watching him. “You really are a hillbilly, then,” he says.

Steve scoffs. He can feel his heart pounding more than he’d like, so he knocks back the rest of his drink in one solid gulp, then winces from the burn. “I’m getting another. You want another?” he asks, voice going too quick. Jesus. He sounds like one of the cokeheads they used to pull back in Miami.

Javi takes a look at his own still half-full drink, then shrugs and downs the rest of it. “Sure,” he says, holding out the empty glass.

Steve pours the drinks one at a time, the bubbling sounds of the whiskey overtaking the music. He hands Javi his glass back and tips his own straight down his throat again.

“Whoa, there,” Javi says, voice mild. “So much for that sobriety.”

Another wince. These need to kick in _faster_ , damnit, or Steve is going to be under the table with alcohol poisoning before long.

As “Forever and Ever” fades away, the record switches to “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” While Steve debates going for a third drink, he sways almost unconsciously to the music, watching out of the corner of his eye as Javi stretches back on the sofa and takes a long pull of his whiskey. Then—may miracles never cease—he begins mouthing along with John Denver. “ _Life is old here, older than the trees,_ ” Javi murmurs, and even that quiet he’s way out of tune, but Steve still feels something close his throat up tight: that excruciating warmth of affection, the one that’s dogged him around the office and bars for months now.

He sets his empty glass down and sticks out his hand in Javi’s general direction. He’s definitely not drunk enough for this, and so? This is _it_ , the moment. He can feel it unspooling in his stomach like a snake about to strike, the same feeling he gets each time they find themselves one hair’s breadth closer to catching Escobar.

Javi just looks down at Steve’s long, outstretched fingers with a calm sort of surprise on his face, as if he’s just looked outside to find everyone driving on the wrong side of the road today. Steve curls his fingers in an obvious gesture that he’s seen Javi himself make a dozen times at the office, at the bars— _get your ass over here_. “Dance with me,” he says, sending Javi’s eyebrows shooting off toward his hairline again.

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on. You know you want to.”

“You think I’m the square-dancing type, Murphy?”

“Damn right I do.”

Steve’s eyes are locked on Javi’s now, dozens of questions and answers moving between them without anything uttered aloud. The stand-off lasts for hours, or maybe just half a second, before Javi gulps down the rest of his second drink and grimaces like he’s just agreed to play target practice with the new CNP recruits. “Must have cracked your head on something _hard_ ,” he says, taking Steve’s hand and letting himself be pulled off the couch.

It takes them a moment to get lined up. Javi wants to lead, of course, but Steve firmly shifts his hands to the correct positions—left on Steve’s right shoulder, right in Steve’s left hand. It’s only fitting, given the height difference. Steve settles his own right hand on Javi’s waist, resting lightly over where Javi’s shirt (a brilliant shade of turquoise today) disappears into the waistband of his jeans.

“And, step,” Steve says, cutting off Javi as he opens his mouth to doubtless argue.

Javi glowers at him for a moment. “Jackass,” he grumbles.

But he does as Steve commands and the two begin shuffling around the apartment, doing small circles about the coffee table, the chairs, the abandoned sofa. They sway back and forth, Javi coiled tight as a wire against Steve’s chest, just above his wildly thumping heart. A strange sense of finality seems to be falling over them both like a veil of mist.

John Denver’s voice wafts up from the record player, sounding, indeed, far away. “ _…to the place I belong… West Virginia…_ ”

Steve is gratified to see Javi still mouthing the words, wearing an expression of utmost concentration as he occasionally shoots tiny glances downward to make sure they’re not about to bump into anything. He’s not sure what he originally thought would come from tonight. He had hopes, sure, and this was certainly up there, but beyond that? All of his ideas are evaporating and re-condensing into the sweat beading up between his shoulder blades.

The two keep moving together in more or less perfect sync, even after they’ve lapped the living room at least a few times. When the final chords of the song fade away, Javi is looking up at him with an expression that screams _Why are we still here?_

 _Almost heaven,_ thinks Steve, and, trying very, very hard not to consider it too much, he closes his eyes, leaning down to press his lips against Javi’s in a gentle kiss.

When Javi doesn’t move, Steve dares to open his eyes again and finds Javi’s face still close to his own, brown eyes wide open, but clouding, narrowing. With a familiar falling sensation deep in his chest, Steve jerks his head back, preparing for an onslaught of expletives and fists.

Javi takes his hands off Steve and puts them on his own hips, but he stays leaned in close. There’s another beat before he asks, “What was that?”

Steve works hard to still his whirling thoughts. Ever-resourceful in a crisis, he comes up with a single word: “Uh.” _Real smooth._

Javi keeps trying to catch Steve’s eye, but he just looks away and down and down. “Well?” Javi asks.

“What’d it look like?” Steve gets out. Those two drinks are finally kicking in, sending a faint tingle through his bloodstream entirely too late.

In response, Javi gives him a dismissive snort. Then he lunges at Steve and wraps his fingers tight around his shirt collar, backs him up against the wall so hard and fast that a canvas painting—one of Connie’s favorites, no less—crashes to the ground. Steve tries to get his hands in front of his face to block an inevitable punch, but instead finds his fingers tangling in Javi’s hair as the other man presses their mouths together, hot tongue darting past Steve’ lips as he tries to suck in a quick, startled breath.

Javi wedges a knee between Steve’s legs and his hands leave his collar to explore his shoulders, his arms. They trail down Steve’s chest, popping the topmost button of his shirt, and all the while his lips and his tongue never leave Steve’s, like he’s trying to swallow him whole from the top down. _Like a fucking python,_ Steve thinks, borderline hysterical from it all, from the heat pooling slowly in his gut. He hasn’t been kissed or touched like this in—shit, _ever_.

Just as Steve is getting his breath and catching up to Javi’s rhythm, tentatively darting his own tongue into Javi’s mouth, Javi gives him a hard nip to the corner of his mouth. Steve lets out a strangled sound that he just barely has the presence of mind to feel embarrassed about. Javi’s already pulling back with a wicked grin and a spot of blood on his lips, and Steve just blinks stupidly at him, his breath coming in short, shallow pants.

“ _That_ ,” he says, “is how you make a move on someone.” He’s barely breathing hard, the bastard, running a hand through his hair to fix what Steve mussed up. Then he reaches up to clap Steve hard on the shoulder, the same way he’d do in the office, as if they’d just finished up a conversation and now he’s going home to sleep. Which he does, making his way to the door and leaving Steve frozen with his back to the wall.

He stays like that after the door slams shut for longer than he’d like to admit, brain little more than a buzz of white noise and a hum of question marks. Then, as there’s nothing else to do, he starts putting away all the drinks they didn’t get to.

*

The next day, Steve puts off going to the office for as long as he can, until he’s pushing late and remembering that he’s still on some pretty thin fucking ice. When he hurries into command and sits down at his desk with an untucked shirt, Javi glances up from the day’s stack of paperwork to ask, “Rough night?”

It’s Steve’s turn to glower at Javi. He didn’t sleep much the night before, still turning the evening’s events over in his head, looking at it from all angles. That _is how you make a move on someone._ The wildness in Javi’s eyes. The love bite on Steve’s lower lip pulses hot when he presses his tongue into the skin, but he can’t seem to stop.

Somehow the day wears on, to lunch, to Javi inviting Steve out for a quick meal that they don’t talk over, to the end of the day and Steve making his way back to his empty apartment. That night, as he sips one of the beers Javi left behind, he thinks that maybe he misunderstood. Maybe Javi is giving him a chance to move on and pretend nothing ever happened. He’s a good partner, possibly the best Steve has ever had, and this is his way of saying he’s got Steve’s back, even when he gets lonely and desperate enough to fall into the arms of his best friend in this hellhole.

So Steve resolves to leave it alone. To resign himself to stolen glances over late-night drinks and watching Javi waltz a different girl around a different bar every night. To stay the hell away.

This lasts exactly five days.

Come Saturday night, courtesy of Messina and that goddamned tip line, Steve has just a couple feet separating him from Javi. They’re camped out in Javi’s car outside some falling-down, abandoned country shack, acting as rear guard to catch any runaways while Martinez leads a raid on what they’ve been _told_ is one of Limón and La Quica’s favorite spots.

For the millionth time, Steve stretches out his legs in the confines of the passenger’s seat. The lights of Medellín glitter far below them, sending a reddish glow up into the hills and tracing the outlines of the planks, tarps, and never-ending trees around them.

“Hey, drum major,” says Javi. He’s leaned back in his seat, eyes shut. “You’ve got to cut that shit out.”

Steve turns to look at him. Javi pushes himself up and nods toward Steve’s fingers, poised just above the black rubber of the dashboard. “Giving me a headache,” he says.

To piss him off, Steve rattles off an official-sounding drumroll—with flourish, of course. Javi groans. “Why do I bother,” he mutters, pulling his seat upright.

Steve smiles, and feels pathetic. It’s the most Javi has said to him in almost a week. But it’s like Javi’s broken some sort of spell with his words, because instead of settling back into another tense silence, he continues. “What do you think, is anyone going to show or is the tip line a colossal fucking waste of time?” he asks, peering through the windows at the blue-black rainforest around them.

Steve snorts. “Think we already knew that second part,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse from disuse, and the damp air inside the car tastes like copper on his tongue.

“Yeah, yeah,” Javi says. “Still, nice to have it confirmed.”

“Mmhm.”

Rain begins to fall, pattering over the truck roof in hesitant, spitting drops. Steve feels something in his shoulders clench up tight, and he knows that he won’t be able to leave it alone for the life of him. “Hey, Javi,” he says, looking down at his hands and itching for a drink or a cigarette. He’d promised Connie he would try to cut down on smoking, so instead he just twists his fingers around and over each other. “About the other night, I—”

Javi is already waving his hand, sliding past Steve’s words. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You were just drunk.”

It’s a blatant lie, a lifeline Steve could grab. For a moment, Steve considers—it’s so typically, painfully kind of Javi. The bite on his lip finally faded away in the last day or so, and it’d be more than easy to pretend like the other night never happened. But after a week of dwelling on that evening perhaps a little bit more than he should, Steve isn’t sure he wants that to happen.

“You know I wasn’t,” Steve says. Then there’s silence. He doesn’t dare look up at Javi, afraid of what he might find on his partner’s face.

Just as Steve is bracing himself for a lecture or a string of foul language, Javi sighs. It’s a long, tired sound. “Damn it,” he says. And he turns to face Steve before going on in a rush: “Look, let’s get this over with. I know you’re going through some shit. We all are. But there’s no way in hell—listen to me; look at me, Murphy—I am _not_ fucking around with a married man.”

Steve just stares at him a moment before he bursts into laughter and doubles over in his seat. Javi looks indignant, but that only adds to the hilarity. It’s not until Steve feels his face hurting that he realizes this is the hardest he’s laughed in a long, long time.

When he finally manages to speak, he asks, “You’re telling me Javier-fucking-Peña has a—a moral compass? A code of _ethics_?”

“What makes you think I don’t?” Javi asks, voice belligerent.

“Hmm, let’s see—screwing your CI’s, bunking with the Cali cartel,” Steve says, ticking them off on his fingers as he goes. “Whatever the hell you were doing with Carrillo before he got packed off to Madrid.”

Javi doesn’t even have the good grace to look sheepish. In fact, there’s a little touch of pride in his voice when he murmurs, sotto voce, “Why do you think I stay away from married men now?”

Steve just about chokes. “Anyway,” he says hurriedly, trying to pretend he didn’t catch that. (He’d meant it only as a dark joke, but fucking _Carrillo_?) “I’m just a little surprised you’ve got any boundaries to speak of.”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises, Murphy,” Javi says, giving him a slow grin, a wolfish showing of teeth that picks up the faint lights from outside. “And so are you, apparently.”

“Well,” says Steve, and shrugs, becoming engrossed in his hands once again. He’s acutely aware that his face is reddening.

Thank God Javi can’t see it in the dim, because he’s still watching Steve, gaze burning on the side of his face. “I’ve never seen you so much as _look_ at anybody else before,” he says. “What happened with Connie?”

There’s a long pause as Steve searches for a more eloquent way to put this, and gives up. “She gave me a—a hall pass.”

Now it’s Javi’s turn to laugh. He howls, and smacks Steve on the shoulder just a bit too hard for comfort. He jumps, actually jumps, at the contact, but Javi doesn’t seem to notice. “And you wanted to spend it on _me_ instead of some beautiful little Colombian puta?” he asks. “Oh, Stevie-boy—I’m honored, truly.”

Steve shoves him back, ears aflame in the darkness, and lies just as fast as he can. “Don’t flatter yourself. You were just… convenient.”

“Oh, convenient? I wouldn’t say that. You’ve got wonderful taste.”

“Javi—”

“I mean, I can’t blame you,” Javi says, with an exaggerated half-bow in Steve’s direction. “I’m irresistible. Can’t believe you haven’t tried to jump me before now.”

“You _motherfucker_ ,” Steve says, but he’s laughing again too. He feels looser now, almost giddy. Javi’s positively merciless in his ribbing, always has been, but somehow it makes him feel better about everything. Like he’s not carrying it all by himself.

The rain begins to peter off, until the final drops sound like no more than gentle taps against the windshield. When their laughter dies down, Steve realizes he’s been staring at Javi for about a second too long.

Like he’s been waiting all night for this, Javi stretches back in his seat and folds his arms behind his head, a crooked grin spreading on his face. “Well, then,” he says. “Ven y cógelo, white boy.”

Steve, who never could resist a direct order, lunges across the console to tangle his hands in Javi’s shirt, pressing his mouth and tongue to Javi’s like a drowning man going for air. He tries to mimic the moves his partner put on him the other night, running his fingers over Javi’s shoulders and down his arms, back up into his hair.

Javi seems to have no trouble at all keeping up with Steve’s pace, cupping one hand around the back of his neck to pull him closer, another roaming down his ribs to rest over Steve’s hip. When Javi gives his ass a firm smack, Steve slams an elbow backward into the steering wheel, setting off a honk that echoes through the darkened countryside.

Steve pulls back to grimace as Javi chuckles and the sound fades off into the trees. “Think I just doomed that raid?” Steve asks, mustache tickling against Javi’s.

Javi makes a long, thoughtful noise. “I think it was doomed from the moment you decided to wear that shirt this morning,” he says, moving a hand over the front of Steve’s red polo.

“Aw, you’re makin’ me blush.” It’s the damn truth, too.

Javi laughs as he shifts Steve off him, back over to the passenger seat. For a moment it feels like the moment’s over, like Javi will put the car in Drive and they’ll head back down the mountain bitching at each other as always. No harm, no foul. But then Javi steps over the console with a feline grace and straddles Steve’s lap, knees planted on the seat to either side of his hips. Without breaking eye contact, Javi reaches down and yanks the lever to recline the passenger seat back, dropping both of them horizontal with a hard thump.

“Ow,” Steve says before Javi’s mouth is all over him again, effectively silencing any further complaints. His lips and tongue are hot and wet, moving against Steve’s with a single-minded efficiency, and without any thought to it Steve’s hands are across Javi’s back, crushing their bodies together.

Javi pulls back to press kisses down his jawline, and Steve leans back to expose the long curve of his neck as Javi makes his way downward. He pauses under the hollow of Steve’s collarbone to dig his teeth in and suck, long enough that Steve knows beyond a doubt he’ll be wearing that tomorrow.

But he doesn’t stop there. “Javi—” Steve gasps out as his partner keeps kissing his way down, pausing to mouth at his left nipple through his shirt.

“Shh,” Javi murmurs, and yet again, Steve can’t help but do as he’s told. He sucks in a quick breath as Javi grinds his hips down hard, enough to feel just how turned on they both are, while Steve’s busy trying not to let himself think about what’s happening, about Connie, about _why_ Javi is so damn good at this in the first place. _Just go with it._

Javi palms Steve’s thighs apart and slides down between them, kneeling on the floor of the car at Steve’s feet. It can’t be comfortable there, but Javi somehow manages to make the move look effortless. When he looks back up with eyes as dark as sin itself, Steve swallows, heart jumping in his chest as he tries again to speak. “Look, you don’t have to—"

But Javi’s hands are already at Steve’s waist, undoing the belt buckle with a faint metal-on-metal rasp. His fingers brush warm over the bulge of Steve’s cock through his jeans, and _Jesus fucking Christ_ — “Has anyone ever told you,” Javi muses, sliding down the zipper, “that you talk _way_ too fucking much?”

Steve wheezes out a laugh that’s swallowed by a long, low groan as Javi tugs down his boxers and wraps his fingers around him. “It’s been mentioned,” Steve pants as Javi begins to move his hand up and down in long, firm strokes. “ _Fuck_ , Javi—are you sure—"

Javi looks up with irritation on his face, and for a moment Steve thinks he’s going to get shushed again (hell, he might just be looking forward to it), but he learns there’s another way to shut him up when Javi bends over and pulls Steve’s cock into his mouth, taking the whole thing down to the back of his throat without a hint of a gag. Steve’s hands bunch in the material of Javi’s shirt, clawing at anything he can grab hold of.

Just like when they’re on a raid or chasing some shithead sicario through the streets, time is going both too fast and too slow all at once. Javi moves his head up and down as if he’s got forever and a day to do this, the soft warmth of his tongue exploring every inch of Steve’s length, almost—Steve shoves the word away as soon as he thinks it— _loving_ in his ministrations. When he pulls off, an honest-to-God shudder runs the length of Steve’s body.

“I’d say I’m pretty sure, asshole,” Javi says, voice rough.

Steve is panting by now, but he can still flip him the bird. “Fuck—you.”

Javi laughs, low. “Buy me dinner first,” he says, and he dives back in before Steve can even think about getting his breath back, hollowing his cheeks to up the pressure. His lips are satin soft against Steve’s skin, his tongue lapping across the head when he pulls back just slightly, but never completely off. Almost against his will, Steve’s back arches up from the seat as he gasps for breath in the cloying air.

Javi answers with a groan that reverberates around Steve’s cock, so low he can feel it down to his damn _bones_. Faraway, he hears a zipper rasp open and then the unmistakable sound of skin on skin, Javi’s hand moving against the denim inside Steve’s calf as he jerks himself off with rapid, urgent strokes.

It’s almost enough to make Steve come right then and there. His hips buck upwards uselessly, seeking more heat and friction inside Javi’s mouth as warmth builds in his stomach. The other man gives a pleased little hum. “ _Javi_ ,” Steve manages, more of a warning than anything.

In response, Javi reaches up with his free hand to cradle Steve’s balls, fingers sliding further back between Steve’s thighs. Steve swears again, or he thinks he does, and he tangles his fingers up in Javi’s hair a little helplessly as his throat tightens around his cock. And that’s what does it, sends him over the edge, coming hard enough to see stars behind his eyes and feeling Javi swallow him down without a single sound of protest.

When Javi pulls off, Steve just lays there for a moment with his head spinning circles, trying to steady his breathing and his heartrate. Dimly, he hears Javi grunt as he reaches his own orgasm, then the soft pants and shudders coursing through his body as he comes down. He rests his forehead against Steve’s knee, breath hot and damp over his leg.

He moves again too soon for Steve’s liking, pulling himself over to the driver’s seat and hitching his jeans up his ass as he goes. Steve has his head tipped back, still beyond winded, and he watches distantly as Javi inspects the damage done to his shirt—shrugs—and leans over to the window so he can preen his fingers through his disheveled hair in the rearview mirror.

Steve snorts. “Really?”

“Hey,” Javi says, turning to give him that smug grin he knows so well, that always sends his heart spiraling in his chest. “A man’s hair is serious business.”

*

Right after they drive down the mountain and shuffle off to their respective apartments with only mumbled goodnights, Steve already feels the guilt, the pure, unfiltered dread of telling Connie. It was practically all she asked, all she wanted from him, and he still isn’t sure he can bring himself to do it.

So he doesn’t—not for a few days, anyway, while he and Javi chase down dead lead after dead lead, playing it cool at work and hitting bars at night like nothing’s changed between them. While he and Javi refuse to come within a few feet of one another during the day, but at night eat dinner together and make small talk about work and Miami and Texas while they drink too much. (And so what if they wind up in the same bed one evening, too drunk to do anything except sloppily jerk each other off and pass out with their bodies still pressed together in a mess of come and sweat? So what if that's the best sleep Steve's had in close to a year?)

But Steve has always been a lucky man, has always had fortune on his side. Not to mention the smartest wife in the world, he thinks when she finally calls and catches him at the apartment on a rare lazy Sunday afternoon.

“What’re you up to?” Connie asks immediately when Steve picks up the phone, and for a dizzying moment Steve thinks she already knows, has somehow heard from someone who isn’t him.

Steve just barely laughs it off in time. “Sitting at home, bored out of my mind,” he says. Then a new kind of fear plunges straight through him, sitting him up straighter. “Is everything okay? You and Olivia doing good?”

“We’re fine, baby,” she says, her laugh instantly soothing. “I just wanted to check in on you.”

Steve relaxes back into the chair, pressing his thumb and index finger into the bridge of his nose as his breathing softens. “I’m good,” he says, trying to make her and himself believe it. “I’m good. How’s Miami?”

“Hot,” Connie says, with a groan. “And dry. I’d kill for a little rain right now.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Steve reminds her. “Hurricane season is right around the corner.”

He can almost see her rolling her eyes at the pessimism of his answer, balancing Olivia on her hip in that never-ending Miami sunshine. But her next question catches him off-guard. “Are you really okay, hon?” she asks, the concern in her voice traveling thousands of miles just to squeeze tight around Steve’s heart.

“Of course I am,” he says, and he counts to three, trying to draw it out as long as possible, before he just blurts out the words. Nothing else for it, but Jesus Christ, does it feel awful. “I just, um… I took you up on your offer, you know, the one from the other night. Y-you said to tell you, so.” His mouth feels bone-dry, sweat collecting at the nape of his neck.

Just as he feared, he’s met with a moment of silence that might signify the end of his marriage. Then, cool as anything, “Okay. Who’s the lucky lady?”

 _Shit_. Another count of three, another deep breath. “Javi,” he spits out, and winces at the pet name.

The silence doesn’t last nearly as long this time. “ _Javi_? As in—”

“—Javier Peña, yeah.”

For one long and horrible, horrible second, Steve thinks Connie is crying on the other end of the line. Then he realizes she’s laughing, but clearly trying—and failing—to muffle the sound. “Oh, alright. I see,” she says. He can still hear the smile in her voice.

“What?” he asks, but feels a grin forming on his own face. A heady sense of relief crashes through him. She’s not upset, rightfully pissed, or about to divorce his sorry ass, she’s _laughing_.

“Nothing,” she says, voice overly innocent. “It’s just that, well, I never thought you’d actually figure it out.”

Steve raises his eyebrows while he takes that in. His wife, his _amazing_ , genius wife… “Seriously? You knew?”

“Baby,” she says. “You’re not exactly subtle. I spent months listening to you complain about this guy, and one day you started talking about how— _infuriated_ you were by the colors of his shirts. So, yeah, I knew.”

Steve shakes his head, still amazed. “And you’re… okay with it?” It occurs to him, not for the first time and not unpleasantly, that Connie's also found herself someone to keep her head screwed on right. The thought doesn't bother him as much as he once thought it might. She doesn't deserve to go through this alone, either.

“Honestly, I’m just relieved that it’s someone you know and trust. But I don’t need to know _all_ the details,” she says hurriedly.

“Oh, good, because I was just going to tell you about the other night,” Steve says, shifting to get comfortable in his chair. “Javi and I—”

“Stop, stop!” Connie squeals. “Save it for when you get home, playboy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve says. He feels like a kid on Christmas, like somehow, even though he’s pretty sure he doesn’t deserve it, he’s holding everything he wants in one hand.

He heads over to Javi’s apartment while there’s still daylight out, but at around the time Steve figures he’s just sitting around watching the news and drinking to wind down. Javi barely gets the door open before Steve crowds around him, walking him backward into the apartment with his mouth on Javi’s lips, on the tanned, vulnerable skin of his neck.

They land on the couch, right in front of the TV—Steve guessed it—droning the latest news about Escobar and Los Pepes and Gaviria. Steve gives a small, frustrated growl and moves off Javi long enough to switch it off, plunging them into comforting quiet. The late afternoon warmth hangs still and heavy as a blanket over the entire room.

He stretches out on top of Javi again, mouth exploring any skin he can reach under Javi’s tattered tee shirt, long legs pinning him into the sofa. Javi’s wearing boxers, (bright blue, naturally) and he gives a surprised little moan when Steve slides a hand down the front.

“ _Someone’s_ excited,” Javi says, a little short of breath.

Steve feels a small stab of pride that at long last, he’s managed to fluster the man. “You have no idea,” he says, wrapping his fingers around the base of Javi’s hardening cock just to watch his dark eyes roll back in his head.

“Does this have anything to do—with the call I got from your wife today?” Javi asks, making Steve pause in his strokes.

He shrugs. “Might. What’d she say to you?”

“That I’d better take good care of you,” Javi says, biting off a gasp as Steve gets back to work on him. “And—she wants me to visit you two in Miami.”

Steve barks out a laugh, too loud in the dark apartment, as he moves down the length of Javi’s body. That’s just like Connie. “You’d better,” he says. “She might like to watch.”

Javi’s eyes go wide, but that could also be from Steve closing his lips over the tip of his cock, pushing down just until he feels his throat convulse. He hasn’t got Javi’s skill by any means, but it feels more natural than he’d expected to just move his head up and down, wrapping a loose hand around what he can’t fit in his mouth. He hadn’t been prepared for the damn _width_ , he thinks as he feels the ache of his cheeks stretching, but the wild, shocked look on Javi’s face is well worth it.

With his other hand, Steve reaches out to cup Javi’s balls, sliding further back over the sensitive skin just like that night in the car. “Murphy,” Javi groans, his body jerking upward as Steve brushes a finger over his entrance.

Steve pulls off to meet the other man’s questioning eyes, to finally get the words out and have him hear them. “I want to fuck you, Javi.” He teases his fingers up and down the length of Javi’s cock, sliding through the saliva he left behind. Suddenly he’s saying words he never dreamed he’d get to speak aloud, emboldened by the naked want on Javi’s face. “I’ve wanted to fuck you for months. I want to fuck you so hard you forget—Escobar, Messina, everything going on with Cali. Shit, your own _name_. But mostly, I want to fuck that stupid, smug fucking grin right off your face.”

And Javi, who’s currently sporting that stupid, smug fucking grin, laughs like the bastard he is. “We’ll see,” he says. Then he reaches down to push Steve’s hands away, giving him a stern look to forestall any protests. “Bed. We are _not_ fucking on my couch.”

Steve has to choke back a whine like some horny teenager. He’s waited all these months, he can handle another thirty seconds. Like the grown-ass adult he is, he gets up and follows Javi to the bedroom, pressing himself flush against Javi’s back as he rummages through a drawer in his nightstand.

He makes a little annoyed sound when Steve ruts against his ass, sending him stumbling off-balance. “Hang on, cowboy,” he mutters, coming up from the drawer with a tube of lube and a handful of foil-wrapped condoms.

Steve raises an eyebrow, stretching out on the edge of the bed and palming himself lazily through his jeans. “Getting ahead of yourself?” he asks.

Javi tugs down his boxers again, squeezing a dollop of lube onto his fingers. He gives Steve a wink. “I like to be prepared.”

Steve’s mouth goes dry as he watches Javi close his eyes and work a finger into himself, as his face goes from tight and concentrated to slack with bliss. He looks so damn good like that, Steve thinks, unbuttoning his own jeans and tugging them down. Even after everything they’ve already done together, he still can’t believe he gets to see this, gets to watch as Javi moans under his breath and murmurs something incoherent, skin turning golden in a stray sun ray filtering through the curtains.

“What are you thinking right now?” Steve asks, already breathing hard.

Javi opens his eyes and stares. “What am I thinking right now?” He snorts. “Come on, we don’t have to do that.”

“Humor me.”

Javi sighs, and his mouth twitches as he continues to work on himself. “Well,” he says. “I’m thinking about lost time.”

“Lost time?”

“You said you’ve wanted to do this for months.”

Steve needs a moment or two to understand, which he chalks up to their current circumstances and not his apparent lack of detective skills. It must show on his face, because Javi laughs with more than a little disbelief, then his face softens as he leans in to say close to his ear, “Murphy. I’ve wanted to get my hands on you since the goddamn day we met.”

The words go straight to Steve’s cock, sending blood rushing fever-hot through his veins. He wraps his fingers in Javi’s t-shirt and pulls him in for a crushing kiss, full of teeth and spit and hard, hard edges.

When they pull apart, Javi’s pupils are blown wide and black, giving him an almost predatory look. “ _Now_ ,” he says, punctuating the word with a bite to Steve’s lower lip.

And Steve is more than happy to comply. He tugs off Javi’s shirt first, tossing it away somewhere on the floor, then he pulls him onto the bed. He moves up on his hands and knees to sit astride Javi’s hips, just looking down at him, flushed red down his neck to his stomach and waiting, ready for him.

Steve tries to draw it out, to make a show of tugging down his boxers and pulling his cock out, but he wants it just as bad as Javi and it’s hard not to rush. He rolls the condom on, watching as Javi tracks his every move with his eyes.

“Christ, why didn’t we do this the first night?” Steve breathes. “In my apartment.” Considering their line of work, it’s a goddamn miracle they’re here at all, together and whole and alive.

He expects an impatient eye-roll in return, but Javi’s words are thoughtful. “Well, for one thing, your so-called ‘music’ was really killing the mood,” he says, and Steve huffs a laugh. “But mostly, I knew you were scared shitless.”

Steve feels his face flush as he strokes himself through the condom. “Was not.”

“No, really. Shaking like a virgin.”

It occurs to Steve, as he growls and flips Javi over onto his stomach, that Javi was riling him up on purpose. He presses their bodies together, applying enough pressure that Javi can’t move. “You feel any shaking now?”

Javi shakes his head _No_. Not like he has a choice.

Steve pulls himself up and, experimentally, presses a finger into Javi, drawing a long groan that has Steve thinking all kinds of things. When he replaces his finger with the head of his cock, pressing at his ass, Javi swears and shudders.

Steve works himself in slow, watching Javi’s face twist and his hands clutch at the sheets. It’s so damn _much_ , all tight, wet heat and warm skin and just the mere thought of doing this, of fucking Javi, and it feels almost too good to be true.

Lost in the sensation, Steve flinches when Javi’s hand comes back to cup his ass, pulling him in closer. “Like you mean it,” Javi whispers.

Well, _shit_. Steve starts to move then, fucking into him hard, unable to hold back a moan as he leans down to bite at Javi’s neck, moving his lips over the exposed skin below his ear. Javi breathes in short, harsh bursts, and the hand on Steve’s ass moves lower, to brush against the sensitive skin behind his right knee. Steve shivers, _and, hey, wait a fuckin’ minute_ — “Has my wife been telling secrets about me?” he asks, low in Javi’s ear as he runs his tongue over the lobe.

“Don’t—know what you mean,” Javi manages, but he can’t quite pull off the innocent look at the moment. “Fuck, you’re so—”

His words choke off in a sharp hiss as Steve reaches down to take his cock in hand, pumping it in time with his thrusts. “I’m so what?”

“ _Noisy_ ,” Javi says, and Steve has to slow down to laugh, until Javi bucks his ass back against him.

“Really? Because it would have been nice if you said ‘big.’”

“Didn’t want to stroke your ego.”

“You could stroke me somewhere else,” Steve suggests, pleased when Javi can’t even muster a comeback.

He can feel Javi tightening in his hand already, can feel himself getting closer, but he wants to savor the moment a little longer so he can commit to memory the obscene sounds Javi’s making, the sounds coming out of his own mouth. The feeling of Javi brushing his fingers over his skin, of just being inside him and touching him—God. He’d do it all again just to wind up in this bed, with neither of them able to get enough of each other.

Steve picks up the pace, watching carefully as Javi’s breath goes even shorter, and then, at last, as his hands move up to tangle in the sheets. It’s just what he’s been waiting for. In one swift movement, he lets go of Javi’s cock, leans up and over, and pins both of Javi’s wrists to the bed. Then, with every muscle in his body screaming the opposite, he forces himself to slow. Pure torture, but the expression Javi makes is more than worth it.

“Murphy, _what the fuck_ —”

“Steve,” he corrects, enjoying the way Javi’s mouth falls open as he thrusts up, nice and so, so fucking slow.

“What?” Javi asks again.

“I want you to call me Steve,” he says, holding tight to the shreds of his self-restraint. His cock twitches with the need to move.

Javi groans, frustration and pure want all in the same sound. “Fine, Steve. You happy?”

Steve combs his fingers through Javi’s hair, unable to resist the temptation. “Steve, what?” he croons into his ear, pushing in again at that glacial pace.

Javi lets out a wordless, animal snarl, twisting his wrists in Steve’s grip. God _damn_ , it is so much harder to hold this together than Steve thought it would be. But in the end, he wins out. “Steve— _please_ ,” Javi grits.

It’s beautiful and it’s _fucking perfect_. Steve’s coming even before he releases Javi’s wrists, grabbing his waist and fucking him with hard, desperate movements that have both of them gasping for air. He remembers belatedly to reach down and grab for Javi’s cock, hands rough and clumsy now, but still enough to take Javi with him, shuddering and—Steve will carry this memory to the grave—moaning his name, over and over again.

It takes Steve a second to come down, to pull out and take off the spent condom, tying it up before tossing it in the same direction as their discarded clothes. He barely manages to pull himself up next to Javi, who’s still on his stomach and panting into the sheets.

Once Javi’s breathing steadies a little, he twists his head to look at Steve, who’s got his legs stretched out, arms folded behind his head. He knows full-well he’s wearing the same shit-eating grin that Javi himself perfected. “You do something like that again,” Javi says, “And I will shoot you.”

Steve laughs, turning onto his side to draw Javi into a long, gentle kiss. He’s already thinking of the rest of the condoms and lube, and how much time they have to make up for. “I’m looking forward to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Edited 2-8-21*  
> As mentioned in the tags, it's been literal years since I've written fic of any kind, but this was a lot of fun and nice to get out of my head. Title from the Garth Brooks song. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.  
> You can find me on Twitter, same username! Thanks for reading!


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